Power Of Nightmares Time About 3 hours
This is a 3 part series from the BBC which purports to expose the use
of fear to control national debate and steer government policies. Part
1 explores the rise of Leo Strauss and the neocons after World War II.
Part 2 continues through the Reagan and Clinton administrations.
Part 3 explores current events in the Middle East, the domination of neocons
in the Bush administration and the myth of Al-Qaeda, which is clearly linked
with the CIA. Unfortunately, being a product of controlled mainstream
media, there is too much misdirection and half-truth in the film.
Although some of the history is interesting, this film is mostly spin as
opposed to serious journalism. Mainstream media will never "follow
the money" or dig too deep, which is why you must bypass the information
gatekeepers and seek out the real news from the alternative media.
Rating: *

Americanism 101 Time 1:03
This is a collection of video clips cobbled together from different
sources, but half of the one hour disk is the John
Birch Society presentation "Overview of America" narrated by
John McManus. While very well-meaning and patriotic, his ignorant
dismissal of anarchism as an alternative to the statist belief of granting
government a monopoly of force is hard to sit through for anyone with a
more thorough understanding of the principles of liberty and the non-initiation
of force. McManus doesn't even attempt an intellectual argument but
just employs the "Everybody Knows" gambit to come to his self-congratulatory
conclusion that anarchism could never work. Apparently we all must
go through life with a government gun held to our head... and that's supposed
to be McManus' moral basis for human "civilization". The film
will appeal to Constitutionalists and conservative Republicans looking
for answers to the growth of leviathan government. But the film's
premise that we can have limited government controlled by "the people"
is delusional. Since government is always able to define its own
limits, there are nolimits. No matter the alleged
checks and balances, "the people" are never truly in control. The
other film clips are on varied unrelated topics and are good as "stand
alones". Jerry Daly's graphic presentation on the profound media
bias against Ron Paul is well done. "Blue Pill, Red Pill"
and "This In America" are two popular and well done "youtube" shorts.
Remembering Thoreau's admonition to "hack at the roots of tyranny and not
at the branches", this DVD rates a poorly placed hack.
Rating: **

Iraq War Documentaries Time: About 6½ hours
This is a collection of six videos on the Iraq war that pretty much
miss the mark... not surprising since most of them were "Made for TV".
The first is an eight minute segment entitled "Iraq-The Real Story"
where a British reporter covers an American squad in Iraq, trying to evoke
more empathy for the invading army than for the poor natives having their
houses trashed, family members hauled off to distant prisons and their
environment poisoned. We get the gratuitous videos of automatic weapons
fire and helicopters buzzing city streets while being serenaded to country
music. Watching soldiers playing golf and having an outdoor barbecue
is supposed to give us that warm fuzzy feeling about the good intentions
of our imperial legions.

Segment two is a BBC documentary called
"Iraq-The Hidden Story" which is an attempt to go behind the Pentagon's
severe restrictions on news reporting. Most of the "story" is listening
to journalists complain about not being able to show enough "blood and
guts" on the evening news. The western reporters are angry that most
of the honest coverage of the war comes from Iraqi film crews. Is
this the media's attempt to shift blame to the military for their pitiful
excuse for reporting on the war?

The third selection is "Iraq
For Sale", a really lame film by Robert Greenwald covering Blackwater,
Halliburton, KBR, Titan/CACI and other mercenaries for the empire.
Rather than criticize the US government for being in Iraq in the first
place, the focus instead is on the few American casualties and blaming
Uncle Sam and these insider companies for not spending enough money on
"better armor" and "cutting corners". There is a long segment on
Abu Ghraib which attempts to lay the blame on CACI and other contractors
and whitewash the military's role in torture... excuse me, "enhanced interrogation
techniques".

The next selection, "Beyond Treason" produced by William
Lewis, documents the health damage to Iraqi vets from exposure to Depleted
Uranium, exposure to carcinogens and toxic chemicals, dangerous biological
munitions and experimental vaccines that appear to be the cause of Gulf
War Syndrome. This encapsulates all the vile fruits of war and what
we've come to expect from our corrupt masters in Washington DC. But
as with the other films on this disk, there is no remorse for invading
a foreign country on false pretenses.

The fifth film, "The Road
To Guantanamo" documents the mistreatment of prisoners of war by the
US military. Oh I forgot, we call them "enemy combatants" now so they can
be "legally" tortured and the Geneva Conventions totally ignored.
Some of the horrific and nightmarish experiences of some of the detainees
are documented via reenactments and file footage. This is the only
commendable film on the disk.One wonders how this little
gem was included on the DVD with the other five shameful efforts!

Speaking of shameful, the sixth and final film is called "Why We Fight"
which comes from a film division of the BBC. This film starts out
pretending to be a hard hitting exposé but takes a softball approach
to US warmongering. The original "Why
We Fight" movie series was a set of US propaganda films from
World War II by Hollywood director Frank Capra. Funny they chose
to reuse this title, which is like openly advertising that this is just
another propaganda film. However, this modern day version of propaganda
is much more subtle and sophisticated. What makes it sophisticated
is the mixing in of some hard truths and anti-war viewpoints with lies
and obfuscations. The most effective propaganda always mixes in truths
to sell the message. The key is the ability to misdirect the viewer
away from the real issues. Here the focus is on the trillions spent
on the latest deadly toys from the so-called "defense" industry and the
revolving door politics and graft associated with it. The criticisms
of the barbaric and colonial nature of US military policy are given much
less emphasis in the film. When John McCain is being framed as one
of the biggest critics of "the system", you know how really phony this
film is. Particularly galling are the interviews of Richard Perle,
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other neocon stars of the Bush II era.
The lies about limiting "collateral damage" are so preposterous that I'm
surprised they could find a military spokesperson to keep a straight face.
Karen Kwiatkowski, a libertarian writer for the Lew Rockwell website provides
some of the few bright points in the film. But she is unable to peel
back more than the first few layers of the onion. Her superficial
understanding of events has the effect of supporting the official "theatre",
that which is misrepresented as the cause and effect of world events. As
with most of the other films on this DVD, the real story is not being told.
This DVD as a whole must be rated a monumental time-waster.
Rating: *

The Oath Keepers Time 2:14
This DVD is a promotional video for the Oath
Keepers, a non-partisan association of currently serving military,
veterans, and peace officers who will fulfill their sworn oath to "... support
and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."
Towards that goal, members agree to uphold the
"Declaration
of Orders We Will Not Obey" The idea for the organization
and the Declaration is the brainchild of Stewart Rhodes, a lawyer, retired
Army paratrooper and Ron Paul staffer in 2008. The idea is to remind
those who are entrusted with the government's monopoly of force that they
serve the people and not the politicians. In the six film segments,
there are ample reminders that German soldiers were prosecuted for war
crimes for "just following orders." Although the appeal is squarely
towards Constitutionalists, the ideals espoused support the enumerated
"Bill of Rights" and generally support the principles of life, liberty
and property.

The main feature on the DVD is a 94 minute taping of
a rally at Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19, 2009 featuring speeches
by Rhodes, retired Sheriff Richard Mack and many other retired military
officers. I believe these folks intentions are the best, but I sometimes
question if they are missing the point that some of the basic rights they
are swearing to defend are already being trampled on, especially
in the name of the unconstitutional "War on Drugs" and the phony "War on
Terror". How much worse does it have to get before our soldiers and
police actually stop following orders? What is missing in
this video are graphic examples of the all too frequent police abuses across
the country and the government's misuse of our armed forces as a tool for
empire. One detects a certain reluctance to possibly offend fellow
comrades in arms by confronting them with harsh truths. By framing
the tyrannical actions taken by our government as a potential future
problem rather than addressing it now as a current problem, I believe
it tends to ratify the ongoing assault on our freedom. This DVD might
be a good tool to appeal to relatives, friends and neighbors in the military
to start thinking about what they are being asked to do. Otherwise,
take a pass.
Rating: **

The End Of America/Naomi Wolf Time 2:06
Long one of the icons of the "progressives" in America, Naomi Wolf
laments the "End of America" in this 5 part DVD. Each segment records
either a radio/TV interview or a speaking engagement promoting her book
by the same name. The dialogue seems rehearsed and not spontaneous.
Naomi appears shocked that the country is turning totalitarian, even though
it was redistributive policies promoted by her and her fellow travelers
on the left that helped get us here. And will someone please tell
this woman that America is (or was) a REPUBLIC and not a DEMOCRACY?!
The largest video segment entitled "End of America" is a monologue reiterating
the main points of the book. Wolf seeks to clarify the changes to
our political environment that are heralding the coming dictatorship and
police state. Did she say coming??... it's already here! All
the flashpoints that are on Naomi's top ten list have already happened.
If Wolf was trying to be original or a prognosticator, it didn't happen.
She falls into the same trap as Stewart Rhodes (see above) by interpreting
tyrannical government as some future event. Since Wolf is
clearly partisan towards the left, I'm not really interested in her as
a spokesperson for liberty. Since Obama assumed office, she hasn't
been quite as visible crying about our descent into fascism. The
video segments are repetitive and often superficial, and most seem like
hype for the book. This DVD is good for target practice, but not
for much else.
Rating: *

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